Tournament Could Be Gateway to Fantasy College Hoops
Tuesday, April 7th, 2009
Fantasy is really beginning to make its way into the college ranks, but football looks like the easier of the two key men’s sports to tackle with its once-a-week schedule and shorter season.
Basketball, with more than 300 teams to draw from and a season that tends to start quietly in the heat of NFL season and not long after fantasy baseball has wrapped up, could prove to be a tougher sell to the general audience … unless purveyors piggyback on the NCAA tournament.
For the first time this year, I took a crack at fantasy college basketball via a league started by fellow World Fantasy Games associate editor Perry Missner on FantasyPostseason.com, and what I found was a pared down version of the college season that could be more marketable to a broad audience.
Because Perry — who might be the Web’s leading fantasy writer on this currently niche sport via his Syren’s Call blog — is the only person I know who plays the regular-season edition, I decided to start an e-mail chat about his niche.
Here’s what came out of it …
FSB.com: Our Fantasy Postseason league is my first shot at fantasy college basketball (a shot that I’d like to think would have been stronger if I’d been able to make the live draft … but that probably wouldn’t have). What’s your experience with fantasy college hoops? Where does it rank among the fantasy sports you play?
Perry Missner: In some ways, fantasy college basketball is my favorite. Of course, I have the most invested in it because I have been writing about it. I am watching this year’s class like a proud papa because I wrote about them as freshmen four years ago. I like fantasy football, baseball and basketball (pro style a lot), but there is plenty of information about each of them on the Web. With college basketball — other than me — no one is writing about it, so the research is what you put into it, and the types of play haven’t been standardized and are more diverse. I play in three leagues each year (one I created), and I know of others that have been around for a while and are popping up. What did you think of your first experience with it? And what kind of potential do you think it has?
FSB.com: Well, I certainly would have preferred to draft the team myself, but I couldn’t have asked for much better than getting my boy Hansbrough in the first round. Of course, anyone reading here probably doesn’t care much about my particular team.
I certainly found the draft-and-play format more interesting than ESPN’s Hardcourt Challenge, where you simply select one player from each of a bunch of predetermined groups. Aside from drafting, my next favorite aspect of a fantasy league (other than winning) tends to be working the trade desk. That’s missing here — necessarily so, I think, but missing nonetheless.
I’ve never played the regular-season version, but my feeling is that the tournament-specific version will have much wider appeal by cutting down the player pool. I also think that incorporating a user’s bracket predictions — players on advancing teams obviously get more chances to score — and, of course, the shorter “season” should keep fantasy participants from losing interest. How active/engaged have the folks with whom you’ve played remained throughout the regular season?
PM: For the most part, people have stayed engaged throughout the season in my leagues for the past three years. I’ve been quite impressed. I have never been in a fantasy league in which all of the members stayed engaged for the whole year. Of course, I rarely play in money leagues, so that may have something to do with it. I do have a number of college basketball writers involved including many people from collegehoops.net and an editor from Athlon.
FSB.com: I think anyone can jump in and play fantasy football at least semi-decently (if they want to, of course), and the prevalence of advice for other major fantasy sports makes them more accessible. How realistic a chance does someone have in one of your leagues without being neck deep in research?
PM: More attention is needed than in fantasy football. For many people, that is the appeal of fantasy college basketball — that you have to do the research yourself, but you get to feel good about your decisions because they came from you and not some nutty “expert.”
And if you’re asking if a newbie has a chance to win: sure. As with any fantasy sport, there is plenty of luck involved. The first year of the Big Chief Challenge, I had 10 people and the one guy that had played fantasy college basketball before came in 10th. Like with any fantasy league, the more engaged you are, the better your chances, but my league is simple enough that experience is not required.
